1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing technique of detecting and managing an object in image data.
2. Description of the Related Art
As digital still cameras (to be also referred to as “DSCs” hereinafter) become popular, image data as many as several thousands or several ten thousands need to be handled nowadays. As one especially important technique for the handling method, personal recognition is implemented by handling images based on a human's face. For example, a face region included in an input image is detected in advance, information (to be referred to as a “feature amount” hereinafter) obtained by analyzing the detected face image is extracted, and the extracted feature amount is registered. Note that the feature amount to be registered increases in accordance with the number of images to be analyzed and the number of faces included in an image. A database in which feature amounts are registered will be called a “dictionary” or “face dictionary”. Personal recognition becomes possible by matching between an obtained face dictionary and a feature amount obtained by analyzing a newly input image.
In Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-084824, to increase the matching accuracy, a poor-quality portion in face image data is corrected and then undergoes matching processing with face image data registered in a dictionary. In this dictionary, various dictionary patterns assuming that part of face image data is a poor image are registered in advance. Determination of poor image quality uses an average luminance value in each block image.
However, the method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-084824 decreases the personal recognition accuracy and matching accuracy of the face dictionary depending on the registration contents of the face dictionary.